Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment that would eliminate the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage.

Is it that time of year?

It must be. Come back here to Congress and say: I want to lower the wages and working conditions for those men and women in my district.

That is exactly what we are hearing.

When you can't win it on the votes, you make revisionist history, you play the race card, you throw whatever you can.

Over 100 years ago, Republican Congressmen Jim Davis and Robert Bacon realized there was a problem with Federal contracts. These contracts were unfair to local economies. They were not taking into account what had been going on historically in those areas. This, very simply, ensures that construction workers are paid the same as workers in that local community.

But what I am hearing tonight is I want to go back to the district, to people who elected me, and say: I want to lower your wages. I want to lower them to the point I will make anything up.

Because that is exactly what we are hearing. This has been around, and it continues to be evolved and made to work because it works for those local communities. It is about ensuring those local communities are not going to be run over by big Federal contractors coming in, they are going to be paid exactly what the people in that community are being paid.

It continues today because it works. It works in New York, it works in New Jersey, it works in Florida, and it works in Oklahoma. It is about fairness. It is about leveling the playing field--something that apparently many people in this Chamber forgot.

We are here to help raise the standards of men and women we represent, not lower them. So I encourage that we defeat this amendment to keep doing what we are supposed to do: represent the people who elected us and to make their lives just a little bit better, not what we are hearing: I will play the race card and try to lower the wages.

My God, where are we going? We are fighting to lower wages? It is about raising people up, letting them be what they should be, the greatest thing they can be in the greatest country.

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